This week’s NY Observer gives us the 80 most powerful New Yorkers. The number one on the list? Chirlane McCrea, our new first lady, who Mayor de Blasio describes as his “moral compass”. The rest here are Rev. Al Sharpton (a former classmate from Tilden High in Brooklyn, way back when. Wonder what he’s doing now?), Union leader Peter Ward and Carmen Farina, chancellor of schools. Sketch night Monday here for Lauren Draper, AD, Ken Kurson, Ed. was great fun.

The idea of the “selfie” in literature was discussed in this recent piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education by Theodore Ziolkowski. My solution: hook on the Freudian connection. Difficult to ignore (or explain) the effect of technology on human psychology. Just in time for Google Glass. Look out.

A Humanistic Field for Our Time: Egology

By Theodore Ziolkowski

The modern obsession with self has led—most visibly, thanks to the Internet—to confessional blogging, Twitter and Facebook self-promotion, and, ultimately, to the “selfie” (the word of the year for 2013 according to Oxford Dictionaries).

This emphasis on the first person might seem inevitable in an age dominated by what Tom Wolfe labeled the “Me” generation. Yet the “culture of narcissism” observed by Wolfe and Christopher Lasch in the in late 70s was merely an updated manifestation of that phenomenon. In 1914 Sigmund Freud, in “On Narcissism,” discussed narcissism and its intensification into a perversion. The prevalence of this tendency has only increased over the decades, leading psychologists Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell in 2009—nearly a century after Freud—to declare “an epidemic of narcissism” in the United States.

This “selfism” has not merely a psychological but also a philosophical basis. The term “egology” was introduced into 20th-century philosophy by Edmund Husserl. In his Cartesian Meditations (1931) he explained that phenomenology begins as pure egology—that is, the study of the individual consciousness and its modes of experience: seeing, hearing, touching, thinking, etc. It then proceeds to an “intersubjective phenomenology” or analysis of things as they appear to that ego.

Husserl’s phenomenology soon made its way into other philosophical systems: into the existentialism of Heidegger and Sartre; into ethics and religion through Husserl’s French translator Lévinas; into feminism by way of Simone de Beauvoir; even into deconstruction through Derrida’s ongoing quarrel with Husserl. Anyone seriously interested in the thought of the century has had at last superficial contact with Husserl’s ideas.

The egological turn, exacerbated by the narcissism of popular culture, has not left scholarship untouched. In humanities it has shifted attention away from the object of study and toward the consciousness of the ego undertaking the study. This tendency manifested itself conspicuously in the 60s in reader-response theory, which replaced New Criticism’s focus on the text with a new concern for the consciousness of the reader. While theorists like Stanley Fish and Wolfgang Iser analyzed the response of readers generally, other scholars began to introduce their own egos into their studies. Since the 60s the tendency has become pervasive. Two 2014 literary studies typify this trend: My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead and Why I Read by Wendy Lesser.

In the Spring 2013 issue of Daedalus (devoted to “American Democracy & the Common Good”), the linguist Deborah Tannen dwells on her own work. “When I was writing my book The Argument Culture in the late 1990s, I felt a sense of urgency because I believed that the moment for its message—that our public discourse had become destructively adversarial—might have peaked.” The author goes on to discuss the cover of her book, her appearance on a TV talk show, an example of “agonism” that she witnessed on the Acela between Washington and New York, and an anecdote from the memorial service for a colleague. By the end of the piece the reader feels well acquainted with the consciousness through which the author views the stated topic, but is less certain of its relevance for the topic itself.

Nor is the self absent from The ÜberReader (2008), a collection of writings by Avital Ronell, who falls into the realm of cultural studies somewhere between literary criticism and philosophy. Anyone who opens the book expecting to come to grips with the super-reader’s ideas must first wade through many pages of photographs showing her in various costumes and in “selfies” ante datum with such figures as Jacques Derrida, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Judith Butler.

Personal asides intrude into her text s at unexpected moments. In Stupidity (2002), Ronell, after confessing her difficulties in learning the gestures of Tai Chi, reveals that she was “fired unceremoniously, no doubt illegally, but nonetheless thankfully by the University of Virginia” and that she “avoided working in proximity to de Man for fear that he would crush my already nonexistent balls.” Do we really need to know this? Does it help the argument or the analysis?

In The Test Drive (2005) we are told that “I write from a philosophical need” and that “I am not about gloom and doom but want to heed what Husserl and others, some whose names you do not know, say about ‘man’s now unbearable lack of clarity about his own existence and his infinite tasks.’” From these writings we learn more about the author’s feelings and needs than we do about the subjects that they allegedly address.

The egological turn shows up in other fields as well. Elaine Pagels ended her prize-winning book on The Gnostic Gospels (1979) with a statement with which many of her colleagues would heartily agree: “The task of the historian, as I understand it, is not to advocate any side, but to explore the evidence.” It is a surprise, then, to open the religion professor’s study of “The Secret Gospel of Thomas” (Beyond Belief, 2003) and find a moving account of her feelings at learning of her young son’s diagnosis with a rare and fatal lung disease. Her reflections on the meaning of faith and her own religious experience continue in subsequent chapters. We learn that the author joined an evangelical Christian church at the age of fourteen but eventually, constrained by the narrowness of their beliefs, turned to the formal study of religion in search of the “real Christianity.” The author then relates how she came to her present subject following a conversation in San Francisco’s Zen Center with an American Buddhist who joked that, had he known the Gospel of Thomas, he would not have become a Buddhist. The last chapter recounts her doubts and temptation to leave Christianity until she encountered “in the presence of a venerable Buddhist monk, in the cantor’s singing at a bar mitzvah, and on mountain hikes—something compelling, powerful, even terrifying that I could not ignore.”

Pagels tells us that her research appeared originally in scholarly publications and was revised for the book “to make it more generally accessible.” Presumably the scholarly version lacked the intimate personal details that embarrass some readers and divert their attention away from the subject that initially brought them to her authoritative account of the Gospel of Thomas.

Such revelations are not, of course, restricted to literary-philosophical and religious studies. The catalog for a 1996 exhibition at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art proclaims its topic in its title, Negotiating Rapture: The Power of Art to Transform Lives. We are invited to have a phenomenological experience—to analyze the structure of our own emotions—rather than to study objectively the art before our eyes. The editor’s introduction explains that rapture is understood here as “those precise periods of blissful transport with which religion and sexuality are familiar.”

Some of his contributors take him quite literally. In a piece on “The Fable of the Courtesan, the Ascetic, and the King” Lee Siegel recalls his experience as a high-school student when he came across a copy of the Bhagavadgita and was stunned by the depiction of a god’s appearance to a rapt witness. “I craved more. And since the Kamasutra was the only other Indian text of which I had heard at the time, I turned to it next and was equally, but differently, enraptured. Too embarrassed, too young, and too broke to purchase the book, and inspired by pubescent deviance, I stole a copy” and “studied the copulatory postures represented by the Indian artists and lucubrated over the ancient text.” These revelations may help us to understand the author’s response to Indian art, but does it contribute to the reader’s understanding of the object under discussion?

The egological turn, virtually de rigueur in the New Historicism, was pronounced in its founding text. In Renaissance Self-Fashioning (1980) Stephen Greenblatt acknowledged that “the questions I ask of my material and indeed the very nature of this material are shaped by the questions I ask of myself.” To achieve this end he focused on “a handful of arresting figures who seem to contain within themselves much of what we need.” Greenblatt closed his study of the Renaissance with an intimate anecdote from his own experience “because I want to bear witness to my overwhelming need to sustain the illusion that I am the principal maker of my own identity.”

A similar need was shared by some of the contributors to the volume The New Historicism (1989). Catherine Gallagher began her piece on “Marxism and the New Historicism” by admitting that “I can only write from what may seem a highly unusual perspective, that of critics who have arrived at new historicist positions via continental Marxist theory and 1960s radical politics.” By the end we have become acquainted with the author’s personal intellectual history, but we have gained little insight into the stated topic.

Trivial photos of the author, intimate disclosures about family tragedies, confessions of teenage sexual fantasies, statements of personal identities and ideologies—all these do not bring us closer to the object under consideration. But occasionally the egological turn actually contributes to our understanding.

John Eliot Gardiner’s book on Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven (2013) begins with an autobiographical chapter by the author; and from time to time he intercedes in the first person, as in the description of their reception “as honored guests” when Gardiner and his choir arrived at the Georgenkirche of Eisenach to leading the singing on Easter Sunday 2000. Here, in contrast to the earlier examples, the author’s personal experience is directly relevant to his topic.

Gardiner is one of the world’s leading conductors of Baroque music and of Bach in particular. When he analyzes a cantata, his discussion is enhanced by his years of experience with the work. “I seek to convey what it is like to approach Bach from the position of a performer and conductor standing in front of a vocal and instrumental ensemble, just as he himself habitually did.” His portrayal of Bach’s life and works is decisively enhanced by his personal experience—even, on occasion, inhibited because he chooses on the basis on that experience to neglect the keyboard and instrumental compositions for the sake of the choral works.

Among publications of the past two decades in humanistic fields many other examples of this egological turn can readily be found, but they are rarely so positive and productive as in the case of Gardiner’s book. There can be no objection to an author’s explanation, in the preface, of his or her reasons for turning to a given topic. Such information can ease our way into the study, especially if we do not know the author. But once within the text, such disclosures only distract our attention from the material at hand, whether it be “stupidity,” the Gospel of John, Indian art, or Renaissance literature.

We are too often encouraged to concern ourselves with the author’s responses rather than with the work itself—with the phenomenological ego and its self-analysis—and not with the object itself, whether textual, musical, or visual. The egological turn may be explained as a reaction to the over-theorization of humanistic studies that dominated the late 20th century and drove students out of courses and readers away from books in the humanities. But it could easily have a similar negative effect if it simply replaces theory with the preening self of the teacher or author. In Freud’s terms: “ego-libido” has largely absorbed “object-libido”—and, as we have seen in several cases, the libido all too often takes priority.

Theodore Ziolkowski is a professor emeritus of modern languages at Princeton University.

Peggy Roalf does it again. This time with the great Cuneo. John, a powerfully vivid illustrator is also one of the best draughtsmen alive. Here, in full, is Peggy’s interview. Great work, all.

Q: Originally from New Jersey, what are some of your favorite things about living and working in Woodstock. NY?

A: I have lived in Denver and San Francisco as well. I think of myself as a city person but may have to recalibrate that image now that I’ve spent a decade here inWoodstock. NY. I miss the stimulation of the city and should get into NYC more often, but I’m a pretty solitary person and this is as good a place as any to sit at a table and draw. Besides, I’m told that it’s really pretty outside.

Q: How and when did you first become interested in art and illustration?

A: I’ve always drawn (I was one of those kids). We weren’t a museum family, and any art or illustration I saw was in newspapers and books. My naive and entitled presumption was that kids like me eventually got “a job” drawing pictures that would be reproduced on a page somewhere, surrounded by type.

Q: Do you keep a sketchbook? What is the balance between the art you create on paper versus In the computer?

A: I’ve always got some sketchbooks going. Among other things, I use them for practice, to document my neuroses and obsessions, and to reconnect with the tactile pleasure of making marks on paper. I’m fairly obsessive about it and would work in them exclusively if it wasn’t for deadlines and mortgages.

All my stuff is done on paper and I don’t think I have Photoshop. I worry that if I had the technical option to make changes or “fix” images, my OCD would go nuclear and I’d wind up chattering to myself, hunched over a laptop tweaking flesh tones for a week.

Q:What is the most important item in your studio?

A: Any current, unfinished sketchbook I guess. Also some original art from friends and colleagues. If my wife pops in, she goes to the top of the list. In the summer, the AC unit is pretty vital.

Q:What was your favorite book as a child?

A: The theatrically mournful tone and blunt predatory nature of the Walrus and the Carpenter in L. Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass really messed me up. Tenniel’s drawings here are peerless, which didn’t help.

Q: What is the best book you’ve recently read?

A: John Cheever’s personal journals and Geoff Dyer’s essay and review collection, Otherwise Known As The Human Condition.

Q:Who and what are some of your strongest influences?

A: My influences are in constant rotation and new ones are added to the list all the time. A book capriciously pulled from the shelf can propel me down a rabbit hole of craven envy or divine inspiration. Currently, Ronald Searle, Friso Henstra and David Hughes have prompted a good portion of both.

Q: What was your first professional assignment and how did you get it?

A: I don’t recall, but my first legitimate magazine assignment was from Martha Geering at Sierra Magazine, to whom I’ll always be grateful.

Q: What are some of your favorite places/books/blogs/websites for inspiration?

A: For me, drawing for assignment is rife with anxiety. I envy those folks who express excitement and optimism at the beginning of a job. I am honestly hoping not to disappoint.

Q: What is/would be your karaoke song—and why?

A: Excruciating self-awareness prohibits me from the abandon required for this kind of fun. That said, in a perfect world, and with enough vodka, Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together is my jam.

Q: What is your hobby?

A: Pacing.

Q: What would be your last supper?

A: Lamb chops and a case of Barolo with family and friends. Iced poppyseed cake from Just Desserts in SF. Placemats to draw on.

Golf Digest reportage from the Masters Tournament.

Personal sketchbook drawing.

Rhino and Poacher, for Fragile Planet exhibition.

John Cuneo is a magazine illustrator. His work appears in most major publications, including Esquire, The New Yorker, GQ, The NY Times, Garden & Gun, Entertainment Weekly, Mother Jones and Town & Country. Two collections of his personal drawing have been published: nEuROTIC (Fantagraphics), and this year, an eponomously titled collection published by Goya: LP Series.

His work has received 9 medals for the Society of Illustrators and in 2011 he received the Society of Illustrators Hamilton King Award.

Last year, he was one of 7 illustrators featured in the Delaware Art Museum exhibit, State of the Art: Illustration 100 Years After Howard Pyle; one of his drawings hangs their permanent collection. He’s been the subject of a Communication Arts mag feature; his drawings are included in American Illustration, the Society of Illustrators, and the Society of Publication & Design annuals as well as many magazines and satirical publications abroad. Drawger

FYI . . .

Steve Brodner feels he is a newcomer to illustration but that's because he has a really bad memory. Much of his career is worth remembering in any case. Most of it has been about a guy getting to absolutely live his dream; making pictures that make stabs at telling the truth in print about things he feels are important. He is still at it, now moving across platforms, believing, with some justification, that we are all content providers and can now see our ideas shape and get shaped by all manner of media. This site is dedicated to that. And above all, to the best of our imperfect faculties, to telling the truth.

Caricature is…

Caricature, which is a subcategory of illustration, is about finding the narrative elements within a portrait and making them clear as tools in making literal and figurative points. When done for publication, it is not merely about making big things bigger and small things smaller. It is storytelling. This involves knowledge about what is under the surface of a face and teasing it to the top. Caricature is not the destination. It is the journey. It's the bike you ride.